MLB reacts angrily to locked-out players new offer

Major League Baseball reacted angrily to the latest offer by locked-out players when bargaining resumed Sunday, accusing the union of backtracking and showing no sign of a breakthrough to get the derailed season back on track.

The squabbling sides talked for 95 minutes on the 95th day of the lockout, largely restating their positions to each other. Talks broke off Tuesday after nine days of negotiations in Jupiter, Florida, and Commissioner Rob Manfred cancelled the first two series of the season for each team, a total of 91 games.

This was the first meeting since then, coming in the first season delayed by labour strife since 1995. Manfred was in the MLB offices Sunday but did not attend the bargaining sessions.

The union followed the four-day recess by putting many of its proposals in writing.

"We were hoping to see movement in our direction to give us additional flexibility and get a deal done quickly," MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said. "The players' association chose to come back to us with a proposal that was worse than Monday night and was not designed to move the process forward. On some issues, they even went backwards. Simply put, we are deadlocked. We will try to figure out how to respond, but nothing in this proposal makes it easy."

Trying to resolve baseball's second-longest labour stoppage, the sides remained far apart on luxury tax, minimum salaries and the proposed bonus pool for pre-arbitration eligible players. The union lowered its starting point for the bonus pool by $5 million US to $80 million but left its proposals for the luxury tax and minimum salary unchanged.

Players declined to publicly respond to MLB but have maintained they withdrew their proposals for expanded free agency and arbitration and